I dunno. I remember how excited my dad was when he brought home his McIntosh 1600 fm receiver. He was excited my mom, not so much. She made him return it, and the store wouldn't accept. So he hid it in the crawl space and never said a word again about it. 25 years later I found it. You can imagine how happy I was. I still have that receiver (fm only) and it sounds really good, but I have to say my yaquin tube amp sounds better and that is why the mac is in storage. One of these days I will drag it out and recap it. That one will definately need a cap job.
i wouldn't wish it upon anyone to change a belt on one of these decks. but as the owner of two of them, and a 760d, i've been waiting for a decade for someone to make a belt change video on one of these. it looks like you have to disassemble the entire flipping deck. as for the smell ... i love that smell. that vintage akai, vintage sony electronics smell. i don't know what causes it, and it's possibly giving me cancer, but i love it!
3:33: "this smells like everything else" Well, I beg to differ: I think Sony walkmans have a very unique smell, which I think is rather particular to Sony and unlike anything else. Once you've smelled one, it's hard to forget - as are brand new Maxell tapes. Then again it's been quite a long time since I've sniffed a Sony walkman or a brand new opened Maxell tape.
The front face plate alone is phenomenal. It looks like 5mm to quarter inch thick alumin(i)um. Back then they spared absolutely no expense. Then those lathe milled and probably hand crafted metal knobs...
Yes looks like one of the reel to reel models that was about the same size. I forget the model but I always wanted one but it was well out of my price range. I settled for the GX260 which I still have because I was able to pick one up that had been sitting in the stereo shop unsold for I think 5 years. I landed it for 700 at the time. Therefore the one that looked similar to this was probably well north of 1000.00. I used to blow tons of money on cameras, stereo equipment and other toys. Then I bought my house in 93 and the money to buy toys just evaporated into thin air. I still bought nice equipment but it was all for the video production business. Now I don't buy much in electronics. My computer is 8 or 9 years old. My laptop closer to 10. My newest camera I have is at least 5 years old. I run my equipment till it breaks.
What era was that tape deck from? I am guessing from the 1970s or 1980s but I could be wrong. With all the fancy meters and controls that thing has I would not be suprised if that model was aimed at some higher end markets such as educational, recording studios, commercial, theatrical, or public address use in addition to high end home stereo.
That would have been mid to late 70s I think because real wood cabinets were done by 1979. When I bought my first stereo ( still have it, should drag it out and show it off as it is actually not bad but only 27wpc and was the first amp I saw that used Stk Darlington power pack output ic. Even has a light on the front that lit up when the amp was about to clip. That red light basically said "you are cooking your speakers turn it the fu(k down"). That was an old akai amu02 and the tuner tu02. I actually still use the tuner.
This Cassette-Deck has a Solenoid for the "play" function. Theres a diode across that solenoid, If that diode is shorted, the solenoid will get very hot after some play-time, which might cause the weird smell; a very toasty solenoid. I had the same issue with my Technics RS-671. I replaced the diode across the solenoid and the tapedeck didn't smell anymore like it was on fire after listening to a tape for 45 minutes. Might be worth investigating here too.
Doesn't smell like leaking caps. I know what they smell like. This is more of a transformer winding smell, not like the back end of a tuna schooner which is what leaking fish oil caps have. This was made long before those stinky caps.
Use high density foam when you place an audio component face down. The entire weight resting on a few dials and knobs puts alot of stress on the pots and delicate controls. You seem somewhat knowledgeable but a bit of a hack with how you treat items entrusted to you. FOR THE OILY SMELL, YOU NEED TO RUN THE DECK FOR A WHILE. THE SMELL IS LIKELY COMING FROM A COATING THAT'S EXPOSED TO HEAT !
Have you even been in a real shop? This is how they look. Really! Chassis all picked apart for parts and crap piles floor to ceiling. They all start clean and get a message real soon. I clean my bench and within a few weeks it is just as cluttered. That's what happens in a busy shop. Cleaning up doesn't generate any income only completed work does and when busy that is what gets done. Time to clean in the slow times. Thing is here there are no slow times because when I am not working in the shop I am not here. I am working at my day job or doing other things. As to respecting equipment please understand that much of this is my equipment that people have given me. I fix what is repairable and give away most of it. A few pieces i sell. Customers equipment is looked after. Much of this stuff i advertise for free and if it doesn't find a home it is off to the recycle place. If it's a tape deck or something i will pull parts i can use and scrap the rest. Many are not even given away. I make a video of getting something working and end the video with the cover still off. Parts are harvested and the rest scrapped. So if something is going to be scrapped why should i care how rough I am with it.
@@12voltvids Nice unit but bit clunky and daft looking trying to be a open reel deck I feel . Wonder who designed it haha that plastic motorised door is like - why ?! :-)
Now had that been technics they would have at least used real glass and then put a sticker on it that says "glass" LOL. Seriously though they did. Take a look at my SUV9 amplifier. Lesser used controls behind a glass door with a button to open, but you close manually.
Holly ... , the mechanism on this deck, all other ones (except a few) are like toys. Seems like it will last another half century. Why is it that the old clunky 'junk' (description by some people who know nothing about them) just last very long time. With better heads and electronics this machine would be very hard to beat. I love the removable front panel - all 'better' hi-fi and pro equipment should be build this way for easy service.
This one would be welcome in my collection. Only problem, I wouldn't be able to use it because all my tapes are recorded in either dolby C or DBX. Most DBX as a had a Panasonic cassette deck in my car that had DBX and the majority of the cassettes I mixed in that era were for the car. Plus a dbx tape has no his or noise. So I used it a lot. 3 head is over blown in most cases. All it allows is monitoring after recording. A good 2 head deck can sound as good or better. The reason is with a 3 head the head gaps are not directly over the pressure pad so they don't have as good tape to head contact. They try to solve this problem by using dual capstan and pinch rollers. The leading capstan is turning slightly slower than the aft capstan. This puts a slight tension on the tape to ensure good tape to head contact. Unfortunately it also puts excess stress on the tape which eventually stretches and wears the tape. A 2 head has great tape to head contact because the pressure pad is directly over the head. Yes I am aware that some tape decks, like the nak dragon lift the pressure pad away but you still have the stress on the tape from the 2 capstan/pinch rollers. The best reel to reel didn't use dual capstan, they used a free wheeling tensioner that would just turn from the tape running over it, and back tension was controlled by the supply reel motor. My reel to reel has a center capstan, 6 heads. 3 for each direction and controls tape tension bu the outer rotor eddy current induction motors on the reels.
@@12voltvids Akai GX-747 DBX perhaps? I have the non DBX version but it's on the bench at the moment. ! channel drops out occasionally and I think I have tracked that down to a dirty record/play switch. It also is a bit slow and I have to adjust the speed with the trimmer to get it to play the correct speed. I haven't troubleshot that problem yet. Guessing it may need a new run cap? Also, why don't you get an external DBX unit then you can play your DBX tapes in any deck? I sold my only DBX deck (Technics RS-M240X) and now I can't play my DBX records :(
Full Bulshit - Don't Use metal cassettes on GX head!!Please don't write stupid things - not serious!!These generation decks can't record Metal tapes properly YES that is true,but they can play without problem metal tapes on CrO2 position 70 mS.They CAN"T damage GX Head!!
